Dear Suzie, I hate my brother so much that i constantly get the urge to beat him up to the extent where he needs to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. Im a 21 year old girl, and my brother is 28. He’ s living with me and my mum illegally. If the council found out, my mum would get in trouble, and would likely get a huge fine for not declaring him as a tenant. He doesn’t pay her any rent. Instead he just goes down the pub everyday and drinks 20 pints!! He comes home, with some friends, gets abusive towards me, then snorts cocaine. He leaves empty beer cans and crisp packets lying around on the floor. And late at night when i go to bed, he’ ll stay up watching tv, and all i can hear is him laughing really loud. When i was little, he used to beat me up. My mum would leave him looking after me, and to make me go to bed, he’ d drag me into my room, and smash my head against the metal headboard on my bed. I’ve tried talking to my mum. She doesn’t believe me when i told her about how he used to hit me. And when i complain about his current behaviour, she does nothing. She thinks he’ s an angel. If you have seen Harry Enfield’ s character, Wayne Slob, well, that is exactly like him!! Please help before i end up really losing my temper with him!
If you want this situation to change, they first thing you have to do is imagine and picture what you’d like to be different.
Would you like your Mum to come to her senses, to realise what a bad lot her son is and how much he hurt you in the past and does now and throw him out?
Would you like your Mum to gain the strength and resolve to lay down boundaries for her son, as she clearly never has in the past, and say if he shares your home he must get a job, pay rent, stop drinking and be nice to you?
Would you like your brother to suddenly see the light and realise that he’s wasting his life and poisoning his family, and to mend his ways?
Would you like the past to be changed so that your brother, your elder by 7 years, was a loving, loyal sibling who played nicely with you then and is supportive now?
Maybe you wish your Dad had been and was now around – a father who could give his son a good example, show him how to behave decently and lay down ground rules for kind behaviour.
Well – the first and second are possibilities, the third unlikely and fourth and fifth are complete fantasy, aren’t they? And the point about the first, second and third is that you can’t make them happen, and neither can I. The only people who can do those things are your Mum and brother. You could tell them how sad you are that your family is such a hard place to be and ask them whether they’d like to be different. It would be up to them if they wanted to act in other ways.
What you can do is make your own changes. You’re 21. Why are you still living at home in such horrible conditions? No job so you can’t get a place of your own? So go down to the JobCentre and ask about a job. No qualifications? So ask about training. Let this be your incentive to get out and away and to better yourself. You deserve better, so go find it. They do say the best revenge is living well.